Staff Research Associate

University of California, Irvine•Irvine, CA

About The Position

Founded in 1965, UC Irvine is a member of the prestigious Association of American Universities and is ranked among the nation’s top 10 public universities by U.S. News & World Report. The campus has produced five Nobel laureates and is known for its academic achievement, premier research, innovation and anteater mascot. Led by Chancellor Howard Gillman, UC Irvine has more than 36,000 students and offers 224 degree programs. It’s located in one of the world’s safest and most economically vibrant communities and is Orange County’s second-largest employer, contributing $7 billion annually to the local economy and $8 billion statewide. To learn more about UC Irvine, visit www.uci.edu. Today's UC Irvine Stem Cell Research Center is a dynamic center encompassing a diverse array of interdisciplinary investigators that span the schools of Medicine, Biological Sciences, Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Engineering, Arts, and the Program in Public Health. Our state-of-the-art, LEED Platinum certified research and clinical building houses 25 of our 65 center faculty members. Center faculty have obtained more than $275 million dollars in grant and foundation funds, including over $165 million dollars from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. Our research programs include two National Institutes of Health (NIH)-sponsored T32 training grants, NIH R25 training program, 2 CIRM training grants supporting trainees from undergraduate through to postdoctoral and clinical fellows, a NIAMS P30 skin biology research center grant, state-of-the-art shared equipment and research services cores, community lecture series, an annual stem cell science symposium, and numerous seminar series. Your Role on the Team We are seeking a bioinformatics scientist with strong training at the intersection of biology and data science to analyze, integrate and provide visualization of large-scale next-generation sequencing and multi-omics datasets and carry out discovery and validation experiments. The ideal candidate is a biologist-turned-data-scientist who understands the lifecycle of a sample from the clinical biorepository to the Linux cluster. In addition, they will provide support to graduate students, postdocs and technicians in creating and maintaining preprocessing pipelines for high throughput omics data such as metabolomics, proteomics, and RNASeq (single and bulk) as well as maintaining data storage for omics and uploading data to public repositories. They must also perform molecular biology techniques including but not limited to RNA isolation, PCR, agarose and acrylamide gel electrophoresis of proteins and DNA, and other protocols as required as general support for lab projects. Another critical skill is to assist with mouse breeding and animal preclinical behavioral and molecular studies, as well as stereotaxic transplantations of cells or virus into mice. They will also be responsible for the major aspects of purchasing, receiving, distribution and inventory of lab supplies and equipment for the laboratory. This role requires a candidate with a proven publication record and the ability to mentor junior staff in bioinformatic workflows.

Requirements

2–5 years of related experience working in a laboratory setting

Nice To Haves

Background in neurodegenerative disease research.
Prior project management experience in collaborative or consortium-based research environments.
Demonstrated experience mentoring or training junior researchers in computational methods.

Responsibilities

Analyze large-scale next-generation sequencing datasets, including RNA-seq, DNA-seq, and metabolomics data, to address biologically and clinically relevant questions.
Develop, optimize, and maintain bioinformatics pipelines and analysis workflows using R and Python.
Perform data analysis on Linux-based high-performance computing clusters, utilizing workload managers such as SLURM.
Integrate multi-omics and clinical datasets to identify disease mechanisms and potential therapeutic targets.
Serve as a project manager for large, multi-institutional research initiatives, including tracking patient samples, coordinating data generation, and ensuring data integrity.
Manage and optimize clinical biorepository databases, including metadata, sample tracking, and protocol development across multiple neurodegenerative diseases (e.g., Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, ALS).
Collaborate closely with wet-lab scientists and clinicians to support experimental design and downstream data interpretation.
Train and mentor graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in bioinformatic and next-generation sequencing analysis techniques.
Contribute to manuscript preparation and data presentation, supporting peer-reviewed publications and grant-related deliverables.
Order and manage laboratory supplies and reagents, ensuring proper inventory control and uninterrupted research workflows.